WelcomeTo My World

Friday, 30 September 2011

Broken On All Sides: Race, Mass Incarceration & New Visions for Criminal Justice in the U.S. is an hour-long independent documentary that explores the intersection of race and poverty within the criminal justice system. More African Americans are under correctional control today than were enslaved in 1850. We can no longer close our eyes to the destruction this system has laid on communities of color and poor communities. The movie shows how the criminal justice system was used as a response to social problems and as a reaction to the Civil Rights and Black Power movements at the same time many industrial jobs in black communities were moved to cheaper non-union states or other countries. With Philadelphia as the entry point, in Broken On All Sides, you'll meet individuals whose perspectives represent many angles of the system, and you'll be presented with a historical narrative you don't often hear about prisons and crime. It's no coincidence that America's effort to get "tough on crime" and its never-ending "war on drugs" coincide the largest spike in the number of people incarcerated in our nation's history, with little-to-no positive impact on crime or safety. Broken On All Sides investigates these complex issues, concludes that the system is surely broken, and offers ideas for change.http://kck.st/r1WBxW via @kickstarter

Wednesday, 28 September 2011

A more detailed video explaining what the "Faces For Sara Kruzan" petition is, what its purpose is, and how you can quickly participate. Sara Kruzan was a child-sex trafficking and multiple rape victim sentenced to Life without Parole at age 16 for killing her pimp (though it's strongly argued that her life was at stake if she didn't follow the order to do so by a rival pimp). Recently Governor Schwarzenegger granted Sara a lesser sentence with 25 to Life with possible parole (in approximately two years). This petition will tell you how you can help with minimum input and maximum output.

St. Louis (KSDK) -- Like most of us, there
are certain things Roosevelt Roberts would
like to change about himself, for example
he's not a big fan of his name.

"I'm growing into it the older I get, but when
I was a kid I hated it! Everyone called me
Rosie, Roberts says.

Being called Rosie was probably one of the
easier things Roosevelt had to deal with
growing up.

"My father was kind of abusive to me, so I
ended up going to foster care in the third
grade," Roberts adds.

Both of his parents served time in prison.

"I thought that being incarcerated was
hereditary since my family had all been
there before and after me," Roberts
explains.

But Roosevelt is breaking the cycle.

"It was one of my social workers who really
changed my life. She was very attentive to
me, she took me putt putt golfing and I
remember that experience because with
my upbringing I was like, 'golf, are you
serious.' She just really taught me to open
up my mind," Roberts goes on to say.

He's also proof that one person really can
make difference, which is basically the idea
behind Let's Start, a not-for-profit that
helps women get their lives back on track
after prison.

"Our long range goal is to break the cycle
of incarceration in families. In order to do
that we support women when they're
coming out of the prison system, but we
also work with their children," explains Sr.
Jackie Toben with Let's Start.

Prisoners have a lot of rights. They seem to have a right to multichannel TV, officially, and, unofficially, a right to free use of mobile phones and a free market in drugs.If the European Court of Human Rights has its way convicted prisoners will shortly have a right to take part in elections. MPs who overwhelmingly opposed prisoner voting in the Commons will find themselves forced to canvass support in their local constituency nicks.

If the European Court of Human Rights has its way convicted prisoners will shortly have a right to take part in elections.

But a right to work? I don’t remember from the old demonstration placards that that one included prisoners.We discover today that there are 500 prisoners who are allowed to hold down jobs outside their jails, with the idea that this prepares them for release. It also means that they must be paid at least the national minimum wage, which comes to £237.20 for a prisoner over 21 working a 40-hour week before tax, national insurance, court order deductions and so on.Given that a prisoner doesn’t have to pay for accommodation, or food, or any of the other everyday expenses that his or her new work colleagues on the outside have to face, this is a pretty good deal. It doesn’t seem so harsh to ask a prisoner to hand back 40 per cent of any earnings over £20, which is what Criminal Justice Minister Nick Herbert has asked them to do today.But it is too much for prison reform lobby groups, who oppose deductions from working prisoners wages. They also want to see well-paid work extended to tens of thousands of criminals guilty of very serious crime who are currently, according to Frances Crook of the Howard League for Penal Reform, ‘spending 20 years lying on their bunks in pyjamas.’It is, apparently, a ‘very good principle that prisoners should be working.’So here comes the prison right to work. The pressure is going to go on for at least 10,000 inmates who currently spend their time in prison kitchens and workshops engaged in tasks like cooking, cleaning, sewing, or light manufacturing to earn much more than the £10 a week they currently average.The excuse will be the notion long peddled by the lobby groups that work prepares a prisoner for the outside world and a lag who comes out without cash has no alternative but to commit fresh crimes. The criminal justice establishment, from prison governors to Ministry of Justice officials and liberal-minded ministers, finds it easy to swallow that one.

It doesn't seem so harsh to ask a prisoner to hand back 40 per cent of any earnings over £20, which is what Criminal Justice Minister Nick Herbert has asked them to do today.

Prison authorities also love anything they can use to bribe inmates to keep quiet and cause no trouble. This impulse has led to a lot of prison comforts and contributes to the reduction of sentences.No-one will mind that it makes life in prison better rewarded than life for many of the honest majority of the population. We are not supposed to punish prisoners, are we? Who cares that the right to work wheeled out in the name of reducing crime may in practice turn out to be an incentive to commit crime?The 40 per cent deduction from prisoner wages, by the way, will be going to the charity Victim Support, where it will be used to ‘help victims recover from the trauma of crime and forcing criminals to take responsibility for the harm they caused.’Ministers are suggesting it will go to help families of murder victims, providing a ‘dedicated caseworker, emotional support and practical help to cope with housing, benefits and funeral arrangements.’Fine words have a habit of becoming a rather less elevated reality. There must be a chance of this money going to pay for the sort of counselling you get offered when you are burgled but the police have no intention of doing anything to catch the culprit.What’s wrong with just giving the money back to the taxpayer?

Monday, 26 September 2011

By Aundré M. Herron
Special to the Sacramento Bee
Originally printed on Sunday, April 20, 2008

I am no stranger to murder. Not that I have ever killed anyone, but I have lost several members of my family to homicide. What makes me different from most people who share my experience is that I have worked as a lawyer on both sides of the criminal justice system.

I began my career as a district attorney. I filed criminal charges that made defendants eligible for execution and, through trials or pleas, put people in jail for everything from bad checks to murder. I was just doing my job, almost oblivious to the gravity of the role I played. In 1991, I went to "the other side" and began doing appeals for California prisoners sentenced to death, fighting against the very system I once served. But nothing prepared me for the challenge I soon had to face in my own life.

In 1994, three years into my work on behalf of people sentenced to die for murder, my brother, Danny "Deuce," was killed in Kansas City, Mo. He was a decorated Vietnam veteran who, after the war, found employment as a redcap at Amtrak. Eventually, he worked his way up to engineer and commanded the route from Chicago to Los Angeles. I couldn't believe my big brother actually "drove" the train. He was an amazing guy and a fantastic big brother. His murder was a devastating blow to my family and to everyone who knew him.

Even though I was working as a death penalty defense lawyer at the time, I was shocked at my impulse to hunt down and kill the perpetrators myself. Eventually, they were caught, but legal technicalities led to dismissal of the case. The cold, cruel reality I had to face was that no one was going to be held responsible for my brother's murder. But even if the case could have gone forward, nothing could replace what my family had lost. Nothing - not the death penalty, not the worse punishment I could imagine for his killers - would ever bring him back. There was no "closure" to be had.

Having served on both sides of the criminal justice system, the experience of losing my brother in this unforgettably tragic way, without recourse or retribution, forced me to re-examine the way "execution" and "closure" are joined in contrived alliance, recited by death penalty advocates to justify their point of view. But having survived my brother's murder without the "benefit" of the death penalty, it is clear to me that the death penalty cannot do what its proponents claim.

It does not deter crime. It is not administered fairly or equitably. It does not bring closure. Instead, it forever ties the victim's survivors and the entire society to the act of ritualistic revenge killing. It is costing us a fortune - fiscally and spiritually. It stands in the way of our ability to live up to our highest ideals regarding justice and the sanctity of life. It is one of our most colossal public-policy failures and should be abolished without delay.

Abolishing the death penalty isn't about "pro" or "con" partisanship, it's about priorities. And any fair assessment of what our priorities ought to be cannot rationally include the death penalty. We can protect the public without the death penalty. We can punish those who take innocent lives without ourselves engaging in the business of killing.

We cannot trust death penalty proponents who glibly assure us that police, prosecutors and the state are infallible and have never lied or made a mistake. Nor should we entrust power to those who tell us that mistakes are inevitable. We will never know how many innocent people we have executed, but we can put an end to the mistakes like the ones that have been exposed by 128 exonerations of people from death rows across the country.

We can sentence people to die in prison, what we call "life without parole." It prevents those who have committed heinous crimes from re-offending society. The thought of living out one's natural life behind bars is a far worse punishment than execution, with greater potential to deter those who might take a life.

Over the last 17 years, the state has executed 13 people, some of whom were laudable candidates for clemency, some of whom likely were innocent of the crimes for which they were sentenced to die. These executions did not make us safer, nor has the lack of executions made us less safe. Thankfully, California has not executed anyone in the past two years.

Californians must demand a higher standard of themselves and of their leaders. We must reject state-sanctioned killing. We must reject revenge as public policy. We must reject a criminal justice scheme that systematically targets the poor, the mentally ill, the disenfranchised and the dispossessed. We can ensure public safety by investing our resources and our intelligence in front-end solutions to the problem of violent crime.

The smart money would be on an intelligent, humane, more progressive approach to fighting crime and on helping all citizens live quality lives. It is time to send a strong message to the governor and to politicians throughout the state and across this nation that we are weary of the ineffective, cost-prohibitive, unjust and failed death penalty experiment.

The promises of fairness, deterrence, closure and finality do not ring true. We need leaders who inspire solutions, not hatred and fear. We need leaders who can think, not politicians who seek our votes based on their willingness to put people to death.

We must demand that our public resources be put to a higher purpose. We must use our intelligence to attack the problem of violent crime at its source - where the demons of dysfunction, deprivation and denial of opportunity converge to set our children on a path to violent crime rather than a path to becoming community leaders. We must adopt a system that removes the offenders from society without engaging in ritualistic, deliberate, premeditated, cold-blooded acts of state-sanctioned killing carried out at the stroke of midnight and given the false imprimatur of justice.

Sunday, 25 September 2011

The best way to move forward in life is to say goodbye to the past and embrace the future as we fully live in the present, making the most of it, making it our own, and cherishing every moment we've been given.For it’s when we say goodbye to the past and those who hurt us that we are truly free, free to be ourselves, free to love the life we live, and free to open our hearts to others who come along. It’s in the power of goodbye that we find the strength to really move on and continue a new chapter in our lives because it’s when we say goodbye to the negative influences that we finally begin to see everything in our lives that makes it worth it, see everything we have inside us that we didn’t see before, and we have a whole new perspective and view on life and where we want to go and who we want to be. -Jenna Kandyce Linchhttp://www.facebook.com/j.k.linch

Saturday, 24 September 2011

To be delivered to: Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy, Detroit Mayor Dave Bing, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and U.S. President Barack Obama
IMMEDIATELY CHARGE DETROIT POLICE OFFICER JOSEPH WEEKLEY AND ALL OTHERS INVOLVED FROM THE CITY'S POLICE DEPARTMENT AND GOVERNMENT, AS WELL AS A&E AND THE FIRST 48, WITH FIRST-DEGREE MURDER FOR THE KILLING OF 7-YEAR-OLD AIYANA STANLEY-JONES ON MAY 16, 2010.

On May 16, 2010, a Detroit police Special Response Team, being filmed by A&E's First 48 reality show, firebombed the home of seven-year-old Aiyana Stanley-Jones in Detroit, and shot her in the head, killing her. There has been world-wide outrage at this murder, but to date, Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy has brought no charges against Police Officer Joseph Weekley, who fired the fatal shot, or anyone else from the police department and city government (which had contracted with The First 48), in this child's death. This qualifies as a first-degree murder because police had ample opportunity to arrest the person they were seeking, who did not live in Aiyana's home, previously the same day, but waited until the cameras were rolling. Weekley fired immediately upon entrance into the home in a poor Black east-side neighborhood.
CHARGE COPS, A&E FOR KILLING AIYANA STANLEY-JONES, 7

The face of a STRONG BLACK WOMAN.....Troy Davis' sister(Martina Correia)....she ...has been battling cancer for 10 years, fought in wars for this country.......she fought like hell for her brother!!! Never gave up..... I really admire this sister and her family........I salute you MARTINA!!

You can lie to yourself to justify your behavior, and you might get away with that behavior. But not when the world is watching, and the world is now watching. (Just to be clear, BOTH of these men should be alive today.)@ Jen Fitzgerald

originally by:The Guardian 22 September 2011In statistical terms, it may have been just another execution, a convicted murderer dispatched by prison medics with clinical efficiency. But, on the morning after the death by lethal injection of Troy Davis, there was no sign that the controversy over the case would be buried with him.Davis was sent to his death despite a mass of evidence casting his 1991 conviction in doubt, including recantations from seven of the nine key witnesses at his trial for the murder of a police officer.The execution has provoked an extraordinary outpouring of protest in Georgia, at the supreme court and White House in Washington, and in cities around the world.Davis’s case has become even more charged by the manner of his death: he was reprieved three times before Wednesday night and an intervention by the supreme court delayed the execution by four hours. Relatives of Davis and civil rights leaders across the south vowed to fight on with the campaign to have the death penalty abolished.Richard Dieter, the director of the Death Penalty Information Center, said it was a clear wake-up call to politicians across the US.He said: “They weren’t expecting such passion from people in opposition to the death penalty. There’s a widely-held perception that all Americans are united in favour of executions, but this message came across loud and clear that many people are not happy with it.”Brian Evans of Amnesty, which led the campaign to spare Davis’s life, said that there was a groundswell in America of people “who are tired of a justice system that is inhumane and inflexible and allows executions where there is clear doubts about guilt”. He predicted the debate would now be conducted with renewed energy.Martina Correia, Davis’s sister, who kept vigil at the prison until the end, said that a movement had been formed that would transcend her brother’s death.Read full article >

Thursday, 22 September 2011

while united states citizens in iraq are committing atrocities on incarcerated iraqi civilians at home here in the united states we have our own incarceration problems recently particularly with the bush administration but with prior administrations too

Alone we can do little, together we can do much. -Helen Rice Keller

"flame of hope" as we unite in prayer for TROY DAVIS, and those who will have an impact on his fate.

Governor Nathan Deal's office: 404.656.1776 OR 404.656.5651 he has to sign the death warrant -

The Chatham County D.A.'s office is "closed for business" until tomorrow morning....PLEASE join me in changing your profile picture to the "flame of hope" as we unite in prayer for TROY DAVIS, and those who will have an impact on his fate.

The Phoenixby Lady GrayA mother holds the picture of her teenaged son tightly close to her hear as her tears drip onto the back of the photograph. All present join in the closing prayer, "Lo though I walk through the valley of death . . ." The "Amens" having been said, there is nothing more to do but place a flower on the casket and return home to live with her memories. This is all too often a repeated scene in California’s ghetto areas. A teenager gunned down in the prime of his youth over some gang rivalry of no importance!Across town another mother visits her son in county jail. This is her first time into the jail and she isn’t sure just what she must do. But, she gets through it and before long she is seated at a window with her son on the other side of the glass. She is overcome by sight of her son in an orange jail suit and she starts to cry. She places her hand on the window and he places his hand on the window from the other side as if to touch her. She breaks down and starts sobbing, "Why my boy, Why, she repeats over and over?" Overcome by the emotion, the boy begins to cry also. Finally, when he can take no more, he just gets up and leaves.When the trial is over and the guilty verdict is in and the judgement pronounced, there is little remaining for this mother to do but to find the picture that she will hold close to her heart for the final prayers.As for her son, During the next few years he wakes up every morning and builds hope that this will be the day when he hears something about his appeal. But, by night, he knows the court is closed and he has heard nothing. So, his hope is dashed in flames to the ground in the reality that he is only one day closer to facing the end. Every night, he faces execution in his dreams. The human mind is not equipped to handle the impending destruction of the body. The very hope that so set him free in the morning now shackles him by night. But, by morning it rises once again like the Phoenix building hope anew from the ashes of yesterday’s hope and the whole cycle starts over again. This emotional roller coaster begins the destruction of the man long before the gas or chemicals that will end to his biology. But, along the road there are other things to hep more weight on his chest. In California, they give him a form, CDC 1801. They say that it is to give him a choice in the matter of how he wants to die. But, I think it is just another way to throw it in his face. To be sure that he never forgets, as if he could! The guard rushes him to finish deciding whether to die by gas or lethal injection so that he can hurry off to the love and security of his family as soon as his shift ends. It is a cruel contrast thrown in the face of a condemned man. Whatever he puts on that paper, he is stuck with unless he gets a stay of execution and a new death warrant. So, he must think it through. Would he rather choke on gas or convulse like a stay cat on chemical poisoning? There are no kind words. There is no place of comfort. There is no hope except in the torments of the Phoenix. Letters come! They are like little treasure chests of love that come from a life that was built before. The sobs of a crying wife, the fears of children about to lose their father, they cover their sorry with brave words but behind it all there is nothing in this "Justice" but the creation of more victims. The condemned man holds on to each letter as if it were a life raft. But, he knows that his ship is sinking and he doesn’t want to drag those who love him to the bottom with him. His wife must have a new life without him. If he loves her, he must find it in himself to free her from the millstone that he has become. So with his pencil and paper he takes his treasure chest, the last bit of kindness he has, and he smashes it so that she can have a life. He picks fight after fight until she is through with him and each time she writes back trying to fix things up, he dashes her efforts to the ground until the day she cuts free of him and the letters stop coming. Now, he is faced with the knowledge that whatever of beauty he has built in his life, he has now killed it and he is ready to go to his doom as empty as the first day he starting writing on life’s slate. He fragments into a fantasy world of scenarios in which he gets to live that he tries to convince himself of their truth. But, then another victim on Death Row spends the night praying, crying, shaking and vomiting in fear of his execution which is close at hand. He keeps all of the men on the Row awake. Every one of them wishes he would shut up because he is reminding them of their own fate and they share in his fear. "Just don’t remind me," they say to themselves. Tired from the previous night, they look forward to a good night’s sleep now that the noisy inmate has been put to death. But, the silence of the night is worse than all of the noise of the night before. No one says anything. All of the fantasies of life are shattered by this intrusion of reality! There is no place to hide in the deadly silence to think about it. Then comes the day when the inmate is moved to Death Watch. Now, it is just a short time until he has to face the end. He is put in an isolation cell. He is completely deprived of all sensory perception. This is a place where he is supposed to prepare for the end. Well, it is not for him. It is a place where the panic can finish him off mentally. Destroy any spark of life that may remain that he might want to fight to keep. It is hoped that he will just want to get it over with so that the C.O.s will not have trouble with him at the end. It is, as it has always been, all for the system. The door to the isolation cell opens and a guard walks in. The time is at hand. The prisoner’s fear is at maximum. He shakes so badly that he can hardly stand up. He begins to vomit again. But, his stomach has only blood to give. The guard, seeing his condition, says, "Relax, the governor called." "They arrested the murderer last night." "He confessed and knew all of the details of the case that the police had withheld from the press." With his marriage in ruins, his stomach with ulcers, and his nerves shot, he is not sure whether he is dead or alive. He is only sure of his status as a victim!The system is imperfect! Death is final! Protect yourself and your loved ones, abolish the death penalty!

We are trying to raise a large sum of money for James Prindle's defense. For those of you who are interested, please contact Dan at info@wandervogel.com or direct contributions to paypal at info@wandervogel.com Thanks for supporting James!

We have yet to arrive in a postracial America, but a new study finds evidence that racial barriers are coming down: between 1980 and 2008, the rate of interracial marriage between blacks and whites increased rapidly, even outpacing marriage between whites and other ethnic groups, including Asians, Hispanics and American Indians.

In 1980, only 5% of black men married white women; in 2008, 14% did. Still, the total number of marriages between blacks and whites remains smaller than those between whites and other racial and ethnic groups. Compared with blacks, proportionally more men in other groups marry outside their race: for example, 38% of Asian American men and Hispanic men married white women in 2008.MORE:Is Marriage for White People?"The number of marriages between whites and African Americans is undeniably increasing rapidly, but it is still a small number," said Zhenchao Qian, lead author of the study and professor of sociology at Ohio State University, in a statement. "Our results point to better race relations in 2008 than 1980, but we still have a way to go."Looking at trends in intermarriage is a complex matter. The authors point out that there are two factors at play: supply, or who's available in the market to marry at any given time, and demand, people's choices of who they'd be willing to marry.Between 1980 and 2008, while marriage between blacks and whites was rising, the data show only a small increase in marriage between whites and Hispanics, and stagnant rates of intermarriage between whites and Asians. This may have to do with the supply side of the equation, concluded the authors, who relied on 1980 U.S. Census data as well as data from the 2008 American Community Survey, an ongoing survey conducted by the Census Bureau, for their study.Slowing rates of intermarriage may be explained by surges of immigration by Hispanics and Asians to the U.S. — that meant U.S. born Hispanics and Asians had a bigger pool of potential marriage partners from their own racial and ethnic groups. The study found that in fact marriage between U.S.-born and foreign-born Asians and Hispanics increased significantly from 2000 to 2008.MORE:Should Race Play a Role in Custody Decisions?

Monday, 19 September 2011

In life make it your goal to pursue every dream and make them happen, to learn all you can along the way, to love yourself and the life you have, to fight and work hard for the things that are worth it, to never give up, to never back down, to never surrender, and to be the very best you can be and put your all into your life by giving it everything you’ve got!- Jenna Kandyce Linch

Last week, the Census Bureau released new figures showing that nearly one in six Americans lives in poverty _ a record 46.2 million people. The poverty rate, pegged at 15.1 percent, is the highest of any major industrialized nation. (Sept. 19)

Saturday, 17 September 2011

While American prisons overflow with prisoners, radical journalist and activist Mumia Abu-Jamal has been on death row for almost three decades with no end to his legal process in sight as he continues his fight against the US criminal justice system.

Why is this case dragging on for so long while hundreds of thousands of supporters all over the world want Abu-Jamal released, why aren’t the flaws in the system being addressed?

The United States: a beacon of justice or a system flourishing with fraud and flaws?

“The United States essentially is an illegitimate government,” said political activist Naji Mujahid.

Seen as a political prisoner arounf the world, an honorary citizen in over twenty cities, with a street named after him in France, Abu-Jamal has been on death row for almost thirty years.

The event that changed his life took place in Philadelphia almost three decades ago, back in 1981, when a police officer was shot and killed. Abu-Jamal was wounded, and had to spend the night at a hospital. A prostitute and a cab driver testified against him. Hundreds of thousands of supporters, including himself, maintain his innocence to this day.

where did belief in humanity go
As the child was sent to war
Who said that death was justified
To even and settle old scores
Under the fire of gun shells
Whilst the sky's set violently ablaze
Who said it was fitting and appropriate
Weaker souls deserve be enslaved?
Viva La Revolution
Hear the battle cry as canon fires roar
Whilst mother's and infants hide frightened
As enemies force down their door
Who said that hunger was nature
Kill or be killed is their call
Are we now animals endangered
Is there ever an end to it all?
Take the hand of the neighbor beside you
Offer him bread, water or wine
If we stand united together
We may just rescue our world in time!

It is when you free your mind, your heart, and your soul from negativity and clear your mind as you open your eyes to the life happening around you that you are able to unleash the power within you to make your every dream happen. For when you have that positive mindset that you can do anything, when you push yourself to exceed limitations and break down walls and barriers, you gain confidence in yourself, knowing that you don’t need anyone’s approval to live your life; all you have to do is let your heart lead the way for your heart will pave the path to your dreams. Sometimes it takes standing on the outside and looking in to realize the things we want, need or should change in our lives to reach where we want to be. It just takes letting go, believing and taking that leap of faith.

Tuesday, 13 September 2011

Mildred and Richard LovingAcceptance of interracial marriage is at an all-time high, with a vast majority of people accepting black-white marriages, according to a recent survey. But how much can we trust the numbers?A USA Today/Gallup poll suggests that Americans are nearly unanimous in their support of unions between blacks and whites, with 86 percent approving of such marriages. In 1958 approval of marriages between whites and so-called "colored people" was at a mere 4 percent. That was during the days of Jim Crow, when so-called "miscegenation" laws to maintain racial purity still remained on the books in a number of Southern states. It wasn't until 1967 that the U.S. Supreme Court deemed those laws unconstitutional in the Loving v. Virginia case. The case, which represents a defining moment of the civil rights era, is named for Mildred and Richard Loving, a black woman and a white man who were convicted of violating Virginia's law criminalizing their union. June 10 is known as Loving Day, to celebrate the day the nation's high court came down with its decision. In 1983, 43 percent of people approved black-white marriages. Twenty years ago just under 50 percent basked them and a majority (64 percent) gave the nod to interracial marriage for the first time in 1997.But a nearly 40 percent jump in acceptance in two decades is extraordinary, if the stats are to be believed.Although a high majority of all demographics approve of interracial marriage in this study, the poll reveals differences in attitudes based on race, age, geography, education and political orientation. Blacks always expressed greater approval than whites, and today 96 percent of blacks approve, according to the survey, as opposed to 84 percent of whites.Millenials, those Americans in the 18 to 29 age group, are the most tolerant, with 97 percent approval. These high numbers mirror an earlier Pew study studying millennial attitudes on interracial friendships, dating and marriage. Seniors in the Gallup poll were least tolerant with 66 percent approval. People living in the East (90 percent) and West (91 percent) were more likely than those living in the Midwest (86 percent) and South (79 percent).The higher one's education, the likelier he or she will support blacks and whites getting hitched. Liberals and moderates are more accepting than conservatives (95, 90 and 78 percent, respectively) as Democrats (88 percent) and Independents (89 percent) are more accepting than Republicans (77 percent).

According to the pollsters, the results reflect both an across-the-board acceptance of an interracial jumping of the broom, as well as a younger generation replacing a dying-off, less tolerant older generation. And it is worth noting that people have had an opportunity to elect and experience the nation's first black president, Barack Obama. The president is the product of an interracial marriage -- a Kenyan father and a white mother.

Monday, 12 September 2011

Cornel West speaks at the Attica is all of us event at Riverside Church in Harlem New York City on September 9, 2011.

"The niggerazation of America...courage is in short supply...a spineless Democratic Party...poverty and truth telling...The counter revolution is winning." West discusses Attica, it's history and the current state of affairs in the United States.

I met Terra in Toronto, Canada. An outreach nurse who had been helping her connected us. Terra is a wonderful, gorgeous 25 year-old woman who has lived on the streets for 5 months.

Terra tells a very real story about life on the streets. She doesn't like shelters because she was beat up in one, so she sleeps on the streets or in parks.

I hope Terra's story will stay in your heart and mind as it has with me. After this interview we took her to get some food. She is intelligent and funny, she just needs some extra love and compassion to change her life. The good news is the outreach nurse I was with is filled with that extra love and compassion and will do everything she can to find Terra some help.

Please support all health and medical outreach services in your community.

Washington, DC (BlackNews.com) -- Recent public opinion polls show that more whites than African-Americans believe that the United States has entered a "post-racial" era in which racial bias doesn't exist. But social psychologists and experts on race relations dispute that, citing wide racial disparities in education, unemployment, housing, health, wealth, incarceration rates and other quality-of-life measurements as proof of persistent structural racism in American society.

"It's time for us to change our approach to polling," says Dr. Gail C. Christopher, vice president for program strategy at the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, which promotes the welfare of children and works to strengthen families and communities. She believes that polls about race are overgeneralized and fail to address whether people understand more nuanced questions about what constitutes modern discrimination.

Christopher says most people are unfamiliar with the term "structural racism," which has been defined as "a system of social structures that produce cumulative, durable, race-based inequalities," and likely couldn't define it if polled. However, most people, she says, could answer questions about specific racial barriers to opportunities.

"What we have done in our polling and in trying to educate the public is interview teachers, doctors, social workers, lawyers, people who have the most interaction with children of color," Christopher says. "They may not know what structural racism is, but they know that there are barriers to opportunities for these children because of the daily interactions that they have with these children."

Part of the problem is how Americans think about racial discrimination, says Algernon Austin, director of the Race, Ethnicity, and the Economy program at the Economic Policy Institute in Washington.

"One of the legacies of the civil rights era is that we have a very powerful visual image of racism coming from media images of the civil rights movement," he says.

These images make people look for obvious examples of racism that are no longer commonplace - identifiable and openly hostile and racist characters such as Bull Connor or Ku Klux Klan members in white hoods. "Not the sort of day-to day-discrimination that we have now," Austin says.

"People look for these hateful angry people, but what's more important is for people to look at these broad institutional practices," Austin says. "While we have removed the laws that prevent black students from accessing integrated, high-quality education, we still have the same type of segregated and unequal schools there were in the 1950s. The same goes for housing patterns and criminal justice practices. While there are no legal barriers, we still have de facto barriers. By law, they have been removed, but by practice they're still there."

Austin says articles about race relations today often cite absence of blatant racism as an example of improved race relations but overlook less obvious but pernicious effects of institutional racism.

"It does have policy implications because if you believe there are no obstacles for African-Americans to get ahead, then you're less likely to want to support programs that provide opportunities for African-Americans," he says. "If you look at the research and look at American institutions, you will find significant and very powerful evidence of continuing discrimination against blacks."

This is precisely why the "declarations of having arrived at the post-racial moment are premature," Lawrence D. Bobo, the W.E.B. Du Bois Professor of the Social Sciences at Harvard University, writes in the spring 2011 edition of Daedalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, of which he has been a fellow since 2006.

"The central tendencies of public opinion on these issues, despite real increasing overlap, remain enormously far apart between black and white Americans," Bobo writes in "Somewhere between Jim Crow & Post-Racialism: Reflections on the Racial Divide in America Today," one of a collection of essays on "Race, Inequality & Culture" in Daedalus.

"When such differences in perception and belief are grounded in, or at least reinforced by, wide economic inequality, persistent residential segregation, largely racially homogeneous family units and close friendship networks, and a popular culture still suffused with negative ideas and images about African Americans, then there should be little surprise that we still find it enormously difficult to have sustained civil discussions about race and racial matters," he writes.

"Despite growing much closer together in recent decades, the gaps in perspective between blacks and whites are still sizable." Andrew Grant-Thomas, deputy director of the Kirwan Institute at Ohio State University that is focused on ending racial and ethnic disparities, says those gaps in perspective are based on people's different experiences and life circumstances.

"Everyone agrees that there is less racial discrimination, but there's a huge racial difference in opinion on how much racial discrimination there is and how much it matters," Grant-Thomas says. "White people are more likely to believe that the socioeconomic status of black people is better than it actually is.

"African-Americans are in a better position to gauge what is happening to African-Americans than whites are, and they certainly bring different perceptions of race to the debate," he says. "When whites are asked about their views, whites are more likely than blacks to think the playing field is level, while blacks will not agree."

"Race relations, what does that mean?" he asks. "How I get along with my neighbors or my co-workers, or how I understand the relative status of various groups with respect to their economic status, employment status and health status? The concept of racism is an enormous envelope that holds a lot of issues, some of which relate to racial legacy issues and structural issues. In some ways, we do suffer from an inability to express our feelings on this issue."

Grant-Thomas says the key to bridging the racial divide is not endlessly talking about it or polling people but working together to find real solutions for decreasing or ending structural barriers that have discriminatory results.

"Polls have a lot of problems," he says. "For one thing, they assume a sort of static opinion or attitude and that people have more or less fixed opinions and I'm just going to ask them what that is. But most of our opinions are fluid. If you ask white people about affirmative action, you're more likely to get a much different answer than if you ask them about equal opportunity.

"We're not going to lead to anything by just having conversations. We need policies behind them and to acknowledge specific problems that are there and identify possible solutions and how we can implement those solutions."

America's Wire is an independent, non-profit news service run by the Maynard Institute for Journalism Education. America's Wire is made possible by a grant from the W. K. Kellogg Foundation. For more information, visit www.americaswire.org or contact Michael K. Frisby at mike@frisbyassociates.com.

Sunday, 11 September 2011

Iran Human Rights, May 19: A judge in Tehran has decided to hand over Nima, a 4 years old boy who has been subjected to severe physical abuse, back to his abusive father, reported the Iranian state run news agency ISNA today.

The report said: "Nima, is a four years old boy in Tehran, and the second victim of child abuse [who received media attention] in the past month. Yesterday, and only ten days after he was taken to the Mofid Children’s hospital, he was released and delivered to his abusive father."

"Nima suffered injuries from severe beatings from his parents who burned various parts of his body including his genitals and caused deep bruising around his eyes. He was transfered to the hospital on May 8th. Upon arrival at the hospital, Nima told the staff that his father had burned his body" said the report.

Mostafa Eghlima, the President of the Academic Association of Social Workers in Iran told ISNA, “According to the law, a father may refer to the Judiciary any time he wishes to collect his child.” He added, “Even though the legal proceedings have allowed for Nima to return to his father, we must [know] how the presiding Judge came to the decision that the father is qualified to care for Nima.”

According to paragraph 220 of Iran’s Islamic Penal Code, if the father or father’s father kills his child or grandchild, he will not be punished for murder. Physical punishment by a parent is permitted in Iranian law.by Anette Meyer

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DARCY D= YOU MUST BELIEVE.STANDING UP FOR THE INNOCENT C.E.O
The United Kingdom resident champions causes of the voiceless, the powerless and the weak, particularly in North America. She campaigns for petitions on behalf of incarcerated human trafficking.